Profile

Biography

BA, MA, PhD (Courtauld Institute of Art, London)

James Boaden’s research focuses on American art from the mid-twentieth century, and looks in particular at the crossover between experimental film culture and the art world during that period. James is particularly interested in the legacy of Surrealist practice within American art made at mid-century. In 2008-2009 James was the research associate on the project AHRC funded project 'Queer Surrealism' within the Centre for the Study of Surrealism and its Legacies at the University of Manchester, and subsequently an external advisor on the project organising and contributing to a number of events.

Departmental roles

• Library and Digitisation Officer 
  

Research

Overview

• Experimental film
• American art from the 1930s to the present
• The place of Surrealism in debates concerning the 'neo-avant-garde'
  

James completed his PhD in History of Art at the Coutauld Institute of Art, London in 2008. The thesis used newly available archival material to examine the work of the filmmaker Stan Brakhage and his relationship with a diverse range of artists such as Joseph Cornell, Carolee Schneemann, and Jess in the years between 1950 and 1965. The subject of the persistence of Surrealist practice and the place of queer sexuality during the Second World War and after, which were explored in that thesis, have been considerably expanded through a post-doctoral role at the University of Manchester’s Centre for the Study of Surrealism and its Legacies working on the project Surrealism and Sexuality.

Current projects

James is currently revising his PhD thesis into a book length study examining the filmmaker Stan Brakhage’s collaborations with American artists. By examining the leading American post-war experimental filmmaker in relationship to his artistic contemporaries we can gain a greater understanding of relationships between art and film more generally – providing an archaeology for the predominance of moving image work in the museum today. This project also highlights the way in which Surrealism remained a central guiding force in the art world of the United States throughout the post-war period, in contrast to the dominant theory of a ‘neo-avant-garde’ reviving Dada and Constructivist styles in this period.

Research group(s)

• Sculpture Studies
• Modern and Contemporary Cluster

Collaborators

Available PhD research projects

James is interested to hear from students interested in pursuing doctoral research in post-war and contemporary art history.

Publications

Selected publications

Articles

• 'Black Painting (with Ashville Citizen)', Art History, 31:1 (Feb 2011), 166-191.
• ‘A Queer Turn? Proto-Pop and the Shadow of Abstract Expressionism’, Immediations – The Research Journal of The Courtauld Institute of Art, Issue 2, Spring 2005.
  
• ‘San Francisco: Ruin of the Nineteenth Century: The Assemblage Work of Bruce Conner’, Papers of Surrealism, Issue 2, Summer 2004.
  

Teaching

Undergraduate

• Mirrors and Screens: The Worlds of Andy Warhol
  
• Originality and Reproduction: Avant-garde, neo-avant-garde, and after
  
• Modernism
  
• Situating the Body in the 1960s: Video / Performance / Space
  

Postgraduate

• Visualizing Conflict in the Twentieth Century
  
• American Artists' Film and Video: Pioneers and Contemporaries
  
  

External activities

Editorial duties

• Surrealism and Sexuality
  Advisor to the AHRC funded project at the Centre for the Study of Surrealism and its Legacies, University of Manchester
• Papers of Surrealism
  Member of the Editorial Board

Invited talks and conferences

Conferences Organised

• 'Sexuality and the Surrealist Sensorium'
  Tate Modern, London, speakers included Jonathan D. Katz, Brad Epps, Simon Fujiwara (November 2010)
• 'The Convulsive Nursery: Surrealism and Childhood Sexuality'
  Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, speakers included Michael Moon, Carol Mavor, James Kincaide, David Hopkins (May 2010)
• 'Art and the American-Vietnam War'
  Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, speakers included Margaret Iversen, Francis Frascina and Catherine de Zegher (May 2007)

Film Screenings Organised

• Invocations and Evocations: Queer and Surreal
  Screenings curated by Ed Halter, Juan Suarez, Stuart Comer and James Boaden at Tate Modern. A collaboration between Tate Modern, The Centre for the Study of Surrealism and its Legacies and Queer at Kings (March 2010). 'Reviewed in Afterall Online'
• 'Exile and Retreat'
  As part of the screenings Invocations and Evocations: Queer and Surreal co-organised with Tate Modern (March 2010)
• 'Scratching the Surface'
  To accompany the exhibition Cy Twombly: Cycles and Seasons at Tate Modern (September 2008)
• 'Lights Up: American Structural Film'
  Three screenings at the British Film Institute to accompany the exhibition Dan Flavin: A Retrospective at the Hayward Gallery (March 2006)

Invited Talks

• 'Stan Brakhage in the Bay Area'
  University of California Berkeley (October 12, 2011)
  
• 'Through, On and From the Mirror: Sexuality and Avant-Garde Film in Post-War America'
  At the public seminar Reflecting on Narcissus, Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (April 27th 2011)
• 'Queering the House: Jess and Robert Duncan'
  At Hide/Seek: Addressing (and Redressing) the Silence: New Scholarship in Sexuality and American Art, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. Paper also given at the University of Oxford (January 2011)
• 'Parker Tyler and the Erotic Spectator'
  University of Sussex and University of Nottingham (October 2010)
• 'Forging Fields: David Smith's Agricola Sculptures'
  University of Essex (November 2nd 2006)
• 'Keeping House: Jess, Joseph Cornell and the Outmoded Interior'
  University of Manchester (February 9th 2006)

Conference Participation

• 'Secret Gardens: Edward James and Pavel Tchelitchew'
  Querying Surrealism, Surrealism Laid Bare, West Dean College (June 2010)
• 'The Convulsive Nursery'
  At The Convulsive Nursery: Surrealism and Childhood, Whitworth Art Gallery (May 2010)
• 'Preserving Play: Joseph Cornell and Stan Brakhage's Centuries of June'
  In the session Dada and Surrealism in Play at the AAH Conference, University of Glasgow (April 2010)
• 'Dick Racy and Nance: The Comic Collages of Jess'
  In the session Comics in Art History at the College Art Association Conference, Chicago (February 2010)
• 'The Convulsive Nursery: Surrealism and Childhood'
  Keynote Lecture at Art and Desire, Association of Art Historians, Student Conference (November 2009)
• 'Invaders in the Enchanter's Domain'
  In the session Surrealism and Non-Normative Sexualities at the AAH Conference, Manchester Metropolitan University (April 2009)
• 'Trompe l’oeil: Jasper Johns and Painted Bronze’
  At The World Turned Inside Out: Bronze Casting in the Twentieth Century, Courtauld Institute of Art (November 2008)
• 'Robert Rauschenberg: Black Painting with Asheville Citizen'
  At Representing the Everyday in American Visual Culture, University of Nottingham (September 2008)
• 'Preserving Wonder: Joseph Cornell and Stan Brakhage's Collaborative Filmmaking'
  At Delayed Encounters: Legacies of Surrealist Film, University of Manchester (2007)